January 21

 We had a nice handover ceremony at Chaktomuk Hospital where we donated computers, office furniture, tables, heart monitors, blood pressure machines, did some minor fixing up and added electrical outlets, lights, and many other things.  Besides the normal hospital directors, government officials, church representatives, in attendance was the Secretary of State for the Ministry of Health, Her Excellency Or Vandine.  She delivered a long, but complimentary speech, along with talks from the hospital director and Samnang, representing the Association of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  It was a very nice event.  

CHAKTOMUK HOSPITAL HANDOVER

WITH HER EXCELLENCY OR VANDINE

I attended our first wedding here in the Central Branch, or the Vietnamese Branch.  The Branch President, President Lam has been patiently waiting for his fiancé to return from her mission to Vietnam where she has been stranded for the past few months.  Vietnam hasn't allowed anyone to come in or go out for awhile.  This dear sister has been patiently waiting to return to Cambodia since completing her mission.  When she was finally able to return, they married two weeks later.  I played the piano for the wedding so had a front row seat.  The bride was beautiful and the cultural hall was beautifully decorated.  They will be a powerful force in their branch.

Christmas week was full and wonderful.  On Monday we had a beautiful devotional at the Service Center for the staff and us senior missionaries.  They had a speaker, video, Dan and I sang, and then a delicious lunch was served.  We were all presented with a small token of appreciation.  We later received a Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus carving made from the local wood here.

  

Probably the highlight of the Christmas season has been our 'sub 4 Santa' project.  As written in my last blog entry, many of our friends, and friends of our children donated money to provide gifts for some church members living in the Steung Man Chey garbage dump.  Several of our young adults spent several days here sorting the gifts that they had purchased with the donated money, labeling, then delivering.  Since we had quite a bit of extra money, we gave each head of family a crisp $100 bill in a red envelope.  Everyone was overjoyed and our elves will never be the same. 

 

The Yans had made arrangements with the only real mall here in Phnom Penh to carol on Christmas Eve.  We have nearly 100 missionaries but the mall authorities would only allow 30 to sing.  Therefore, we divided up the group for some to go to the orphanage, some to carol at members' homes and we went to the mall to sing.  Apparently this had never been done before and the mall people didn't know what to expect.  They had a wonderful place for us to carol and we drew a small crowd.  We treated the missionaries to ice cream when we were finished.  

The missionaries from all over Cambodia were brought to Phnom Penh for the Christmas Day Celebration. Audrey Yan and I spent several days getting ready for the big Christmas Day Feast, wrapping potatoes, making apple crumble, decorating and putting together stockings for the missionaries.  The other two couples from Siem Reap and Kampong Cham arrived to enjoy the festivities.  The missionaries had a wonderful mission conference while we got things ready for their big dinner.  We served them ham, baked potatoes, pretzel salad, corn, rolls and apple crumble, then had a small talent show of some of the missionaries before passing out stockings.  There was hardly any food left and the day was enjoyed by all.  

The day after Christmas Dan and I spoke in Sacrament Meeting.  Deja Vu--we spoke in Sacrament Meeting in Hong Kong on Christmas day four years prior!  We remodeled our previous talks and I think they went well.  Following Sacrament Meeting we were privileged to participate in the baptism of our next door neighbor, Gavin.  His wife is living in China and she was able to observe via Zoom.  He received the Aaronic Priesthood one week later.  It is gratifying to see him pass the Sacrament.

Dan has been designing and overseeing the reconstruction/remodeling of two health centers, Prek Sdey and Porthi Reamea in anticipation of them taking over the hospital load when it comes down.  They look amazing and both will be a blessing to the communities that they will be serving.  Elder and Sister Meurs from the Area Presidency in Hong Kong arrived just in time to visit these two health centers.  Fortunately, one of them was scheduled to be completed two weeks later--just in time for the hospital to be torn down.  

That was a surprise!  We received an invitation from His Excellency Sun Chantal to attend the groundbreaking ceremony of the new hospital the next day.  We were happy that we could take the Meurs to this event since he was instrumental in getting the health center projects approved.  Lo and behold--when we arrived at the sight we were stunned to see that the hospital had already been bulldozed--a couple of weeks before scheduled.  However, one of the health centers has since been completed with the front parking area poured today.  I'm proud of the legacy Dan is leaving!

The groundbreaking ceremony was quite a sight.  It was basically a Buddhist ceremony where a chanter recited prayers and blessings for nearly an hour and a small band of musicians played intermittently throughout the ceremony.  After the prayers, we stood around two large pile drivers and watched them pound two huge cement supports (structural supports) into the ground.  Then there was another ceremony where Sun Chantal spoke (in Khmer, of course). He had Dan and Elder Meurs stand and be recognized for their part in the hospital project. It was a ceremony that I shan't forget.

The mission secretary in Hong Kong requested each mission in our Area to have a missionary choir sing Go Forth With Faith for the next Mission Leaders' Conference.  They will be put together on screen so that it becomes one large choir while showing one choir at a time via Zoom.  Four missions, including ours, were asked to provide one additional number.  Elder Arkell, who helped me before, said, ýou're going to do an original arrangement, right?'   How could I not, after that!  So I began working on 'Press Forward Saints' for our small choir.  We finished recording yesterday but will go Tuesday to the Bassac River and Independence Monument like we did for the groundbreaking ceremony to film additional scenes.  I'm quite proud of the way our missionaries sang it, although it was fraught with a fair amount of frustration here and there.  

Elder Meurs spent time traveling the mission with the Mission President and had dinner at each of the couple missionary's homes.  Our turn was Sunday with Yans.  We fixed turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, corn, stuffing and apple crumble.  We also hosted President Neang and his family and Elder and Sister Chaichana who is the Area Authority 70 in Thailand over Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.  The Chaichanas had come into town a week before and were also meeting with Elder Meurs and toured part of our mission.  Such delightful people!   The dinner went well, although behind the scenes Audrey and I had a couple of mishaps with burned topping on the apple crumble and a batch of burned rolls.  Both incidents recoverable.  (it's necessary to make sure that the broiler setting isn't on before baking in our tiny ovens)

Because we had some late contributions to our Sub 4 Santa project, we decided to visit the orphanage that is loosely related to the church.  Because the couple in charge are members of the church quite a few of their 'kids' have served missions.  What a wonderful couple!  They have a small boy of their own.  The orphanage itself is down a long, dirty road but at the end of the road are 14 very happy kids ages about 5-16.  We toured their humble facility and quickly assessed several needs.  We were able to provide them with 10 large clothes pans to wash their laundry, 20 foam mattresses with covers (very important), a basketball standard and several balls as well as a soccer goal.  We paid to have their 14 bicycles repaired.  Such a humbling and heartwarming experience.  So for any of you reading this who contributed to the entire project, thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  We intend to continue going there and assessing their current needs.  

On that inspiring note, I bid you all adieu and wish everyone a happy New Year (tomorrow is Chinese New Year).  May the new year bring the world relief from Covid and strife.

Love, Dad and Mom, Dan and Marian